Technologies for scanning and detecting the authenticity of forged documents are existing in the prior art. However, the production of forgery documents by criminals are continuously becoming more high-tech using the upgraded technologies not being detected in traditional detecting systems and thus enhancing crimes for the production of forgery documents using printing technology. These forgery documents include official documents such as currency notes, passports, and visa papers which are increasingly similar and hard to detect from the originals.
Traditional verification systems include scanning devices used for scanning the official documents and comparing these to the original documents. These systems also include verification devices comprising magnifiers for magnifying writings and hidden marks in these documents. In the traditional systems, scanning devices are provided separately from manual checking devices where officials scan first the documents and only if these documents are reported to be unauthentic, the officials proceed with the manual checking of the documents. This process is particularly true for passport verification by immigration officials during the immigration verification procedure in the airports.
Normally, immigration officials need to attend to separate equipment located at different locations for the manual verification of passports in case where the document fails the scanning test. Scanning verification is normally conducted by scanning the passport and comparing the scanned image to an original document stored in a remote database. This is as original copies of passports are normally stored in databases held by official governmental authorities to which access is provided to immigration authorities in official checking points such as airports.
Among the drawbacks is that these scanning devices are not hundred percent accurate as they generally scan and compare visible data only of the official documents. It often occurs that the scanning devices report an official document as authentic when it is not, and the contrary is also true. When the official documents are reported to be authentic by the scanning devices, no further check is normally conducted and the official document is authenticated by the official. The document holder is successfully authenticated and approved access to the country (in case of immigration checkup), notwithstanding the risk that this official document be still counterfeited. This is as the traditional scanning devices have functional limitations and are not integrated with other manual checking devices for hard-proof authenticity.
Manual verification devices are normally provided with a visible light source and a ultraviolet light source adapted to project light on the documents for verification, in addition to a magnifier to enable to the official to detect embedded marks inside the documents such as hidden marks, water marks, magnetic ink taping and so on. These manual verification devices traditionally operate independently of the scanning devices, where in airports for example, they are used only when the verified documents are first reported counterfeited by the scanning devices. Also, the traditional manual verification devices are not secure as they are designed such that the ultraviolet light may be exposed to human body. For example, this can occur as documents for verification are traditionally held manually by the officials during the check which may expose the officials (or other users) to the ultraviolet radiation being projected. This is a major drawback which may affect the health of the users (such as officials) operating the manual verification devices. Also, these traditional manual devices are unpractical, inaccurate and time consuming to use for the verification of documents which may be dissuasive to users especially during rush time or when the users have a number of document target to process during the day. These drawbacks traditionally occur in part because the document to be verified needs to be held manually by the official according to an accurate angle for the hidden marks to be exposed and verified. However, this angle inclination of the document is hard to obtain accurately and quickly which imposes a limitation on the use, efficiency and security of these traditional devices.